Beyond the Shadows
Page 107
“Who’s the king?” Kylar asked.
“Vows are a bitch, huh?” Durzo grinned.
“This is what the Sa’kagé is supposed to be, isn’t it?”
“The Sa’kagé’s always been made of thugs and murderers, but there have been moments, like diamonds studding a pile of shit, when they’ve been crooks with a purpose.”
“Thanks for the image.”
“You gonna say the words?” Durzo asked.
“You’d make me commit to something I don’t fully understand.”
“Kid, we’re always committing to things we don’t fully understand.”
“I thought you’d lost your faith in this and everything else,” Kylar said.
“This isn’t about my faith; it’s about yours.”
It was standard Durzo evasion. You don’t ask someone you care about to swear their life to horseshit. Durzo was continuing the conversation they’d started months ago about Kylar’s destiny. In choosing a life in the shadows, in choosing obscurity, Kylar would avoid one of the greatest temptations of the black ka’kari—the temptation to rule. Its power made him almost a god already, and the danger was always that he could become what he sought to destroy. Durzo hadn’t even trusted himself with so much power. Did Kylar think he was that much better a man than his master?
A man serving the shadows also saw things that no king could see. A man serving in ignobility saw wrongs that were hidden from those in power. No one bothered to hide anything from Durzo Blint—except their fear of him.
The oath of a Night Angel wasn’t enough to make a destiny, but it was a start. What am I for?
Whatever else he didn’t know, Kylar knew he longed for justice. By serving in darkness with eyes that saw through the darkness, by being welcomed into the shadows, he could give justice to those who’d escaped justice. Those overlooked, too unimportant for mercy would find better than they’d hoped for. Those who should be stopped would be stopped. The faces of the Night Angels were already Kylar’s faces. I will do justice and love mercy.
“I’ll say it,” Kylar said.
Durzo grimaced, but beckoned him closer and laid a hand on Kylar’s forehead. Kylar recited the vow from memory—Durzo smirking at him, as if asking, how well did I teach you? But as Kylar finished, Durzo’s hand grew strangely warm, his face somber. He said, “Ch’torathi sigwye h’e banath so sikamon to vathari. Vennadosh chi tomethigara. Horgathal mu tolethara. Veni, soli, fali, deachi. Vol lessara dei.” Durzo withdrew his hand, his deep eyes limpid and, for perhaps the first time Kylar had ever seen, at peace.
“What was that?” Kylar asked. Whatever else the words had done, Kylar felt power suffusing him, more gently than when Sister Ariel had given him power, but also more solidly.
“That was my blessing.” Durzo smirked, acknowledging he was a bastard for blessing Kylar in a language he didn’t understand. With the way he’d trained Kylar’s memory, he surely knew Kylar would remember the words until he was able to track down the outlandish language they’d been spoken in. But it wasn’t in Durzo to just tell him. “Now get the hell out of here,” Durzo said. “I’ve got trees to climb.”
83
Logan and Lantano Garuwashi stood with their retainers on top of a still-pristine tower that guarded the mouth of the pass, surveying what would be the battlefield to the north. The great dome of Black Barrow and the dark stain of devastation around it were miles away on the opposite side of the Guvari River. Logan saw wonders to every side. Before Jorsin Alkestes had buried Trayethell beneath Black Barrow, it had been one of the great cities of the world in a world where wonders were common. To the east was Lake Ruel, which had been dammed in ages lost. The dam still stood, feeding the Guvari River not through the sluice gates on its front, which had been closed for centuries, but over the top of the dam itself. A series of locks, long since broken, had once made it possible for cargo ships to reach the city from the ocean. Half a dozen bridges or more had once spanned the river, but all had fallen except two, the wider Ox Bridge and Black Bridge near the dam.
The tower in which they stood guarded the entrance to Ox Bridge. It commanded views of the pass behind them, the terraced slopes of Mount Terzhin to the southwest, and everything except whatever lurked on the far side of Black Barrow. Looking at the terraced hillside and the empty expanse at its base that they called the great market, Logan had a revelation. He’d always thought Black Barrow had enclosed the city of Trayethell. It hadn’t. Jorsin had only enclosed the city’s heart. Trayethell had spanned leagues. If what Logan was looking on was correct, the city had been bigger and more populous than any city now in the world.
“We’ll have to move our men over Ox Bridge tonight,” Garuwashi said. “It’ll take maybe four hours for thirty thousand to cross. The camp followers will have to cross in the dark.”
“Cross?” Logan said. “Do you see Wanhope’s army? We have twenty-six thousand men, half of whom have never seen battle. Wanhope has twenty thousand, ten thousand more highlanders, and two thousand meisters—each of whom is worth a dozen men. You want us to fight with our backs against a river? No. We guard the bridges and put our men in the great market in case Wanhope tries to ford the river there. We’ll see how well his men fight waist-deep in water. If necessary, we can retreat slowly into the passes.”
“You’re planning for defeat?” Lantano Garuwashi asked, incredulous. “This is lunacy. We cross the bridge, and we destroy it behind us. Desperate men fight best. If you leave them an out, they’ll flee, especially your battle virgins. Give them no choice but to win or die, and they will fight almost like sa’ceurai.”
“They outnumber us, and we have four magi. Four!”
“Numbers mean nothing. Each sa’ceurai is as a hundred men. We came here for victory.” Behind them, several of Garuwashi’s men voiced muffled agreement.
“I’ll give you victory,” Logan said.
“You’ll give us nothing.”
“That’s not what I meant. Tonight under the cover of darkness, I’m sending ten thousand men west down the river. My Feyuri scouts say there’s a crossing a few miles down. Ten miles downriver is Reigukhas. It’s not a big city, but all Wanhope’s supplies flow through there, and it’s very defensible. We send our magi with my ten thousand, and they can take Reigukhas before dawn. If we can starve Wanhope’s army, it will be his men who melt away in the night.”
“They’ll see our men heading west, unless you mean to march ten thousand without any light.”
“The torches will only be visible for the first half a mile, then there’s a forest between them and the Khalidorans. It’ll look like men moving around among our campfires.”
Garuwashi was quiet for a long time. Finally, he spat. “So be it, Cenarian. But I’m sending a thousand of my sa’ceurai with your men to take the city. None shall have glory greater than the sa’ceurai.”
Thus it begins.
84
Dorian was meeting with his generals in the afternoon when he felt the first twinges of madness rising.
“Enough,” he said, interrupting General Naga’s report. “Here’s what I want. Make sure our defensive positions are impregnable. I don’t want them to even try us. Let them see our strength. In the meantime, I need better intelligence on Moburu’s numbers. We know he has two thousand krul. How many men does he have? And where the hell is—” A vision flashed before Dorian’s eyes of Khali herself, rising from the ground, perfect, whole, beautiful, embodied and smiling victoriously. The room had disappeared, and only she remained, potent, a black ocean of krul rising around her.
“Vows are a bitch, huh?” Durzo grinned.
“This is what the Sa’kagé is supposed to be, isn’t it?”
“The Sa’kagé’s always been made of thugs and murderers, but there have been moments, like diamonds studding a pile of shit, when they’ve been crooks with a purpose.”
“Thanks for the image.”
“You gonna say the words?” Durzo asked.
“You’d make me commit to something I don’t fully understand.”
“Kid, we’re always committing to things we don’t fully understand.”
“I thought you’d lost your faith in this and everything else,” Kylar said.
“This isn’t about my faith; it’s about yours.”
It was standard Durzo evasion. You don’t ask someone you care about to swear their life to horseshit. Durzo was continuing the conversation they’d started months ago about Kylar’s destiny. In choosing a life in the shadows, in choosing obscurity, Kylar would avoid one of the greatest temptations of the black ka’kari—the temptation to rule. Its power made him almost a god already, and the danger was always that he could become what he sought to destroy. Durzo hadn’t even trusted himself with so much power. Did Kylar think he was that much better a man than his master?
A man serving the shadows also saw things that no king could see. A man serving in ignobility saw wrongs that were hidden from those in power. No one bothered to hide anything from Durzo Blint—except their fear of him.
The oath of a Night Angel wasn’t enough to make a destiny, but it was a start. What am I for?
Whatever else he didn’t know, Kylar knew he longed for justice. By serving in darkness with eyes that saw through the darkness, by being welcomed into the shadows, he could give justice to those who’d escaped justice. Those overlooked, too unimportant for mercy would find better than they’d hoped for. Those who should be stopped would be stopped. The faces of the Night Angels were already Kylar’s faces. I will do justice and love mercy.
“I’ll say it,” Kylar said.
Durzo grimaced, but beckoned him closer and laid a hand on Kylar’s forehead. Kylar recited the vow from memory—Durzo smirking at him, as if asking, how well did I teach you? But as Kylar finished, Durzo’s hand grew strangely warm, his face somber. He said, “Ch’torathi sigwye h’e banath so sikamon to vathari. Vennadosh chi tomethigara. Horgathal mu tolethara. Veni, soli, fali, deachi. Vol lessara dei.” Durzo withdrew his hand, his deep eyes limpid and, for perhaps the first time Kylar had ever seen, at peace.
“What was that?” Kylar asked. Whatever else the words had done, Kylar felt power suffusing him, more gently than when Sister Ariel had given him power, but also more solidly.
“That was my blessing.” Durzo smirked, acknowledging he was a bastard for blessing Kylar in a language he didn’t understand. With the way he’d trained Kylar’s memory, he surely knew Kylar would remember the words until he was able to track down the outlandish language they’d been spoken in. But it wasn’t in Durzo to just tell him. “Now get the hell out of here,” Durzo said. “I’ve got trees to climb.”
83
Logan and Lantano Garuwashi stood with their retainers on top of a still-pristine tower that guarded the mouth of the pass, surveying what would be the battlefield to the north. The great dome of Black Barrow and the dark stain of devastation around it were miles away on the opposite side of the Guvari River. Logan saw wonders to every side. Before Jorsin Alkestes had buried Trayethell beneath Black Barrow, it had been one of the great cities of the world in a world where wonders were common. To the east was Lake Ruel, which had been dammed in ages lost. The dam still stood, feeding the Guvari River not through the sluice gates on its front, which had been closed for centuries, but over the top of the dam itself. A series of locks, long since broken, had once made it possible for cargo ships to reach the city from the ocean. Half a dozen bridges or more had once spanned the river, but all had fallen except two, the wider Ox Bridge and Black Bridge near the dam.
The tower in which they stood guarded the entrance to Ox Bridge. It commanded views of the pass behind them, the terraced slopes of Mount Terzhin to the southwest, and everything except whatever lurked on the far side of Black Barrow. Looking at the terraced hillside and the empty expanse at its base that they called the great market, Logan had a revelation. He’d always thought Black Barrow had enclosed the city of Trayethell. It hadn’t. Jorsin had only enclosed the city’s heart. Trayethell had spanned leagues. If what Logan was looking on was correct, the city had been bigger and more populous than any city now in the world.
“We’ll have to move our men over Ox Bridge tonight,” Garuwashi said. “It’ll take maybe four hours for thirty thousand to cross. The camp followers will have to cross in the dark.”
“Cross?” Logan said. “Do you see Wanhope’s army? We have twenty-six thousand men, half of whom have never seen battle. Wanhope has twenty thousand, ten thousand more highlanders, and two thousand meisters—each of whom is worth a dozen men. You want us to fight with our backs against a river? No. We guard the bridges and put our men in the great market in case Wanhope tries to ford the river there. We’ll see how well his men fight waist-deep in water. If necessary, we can retreat slowly into the passes.”
“You’re planning for defeat?” Lantano Garuwashi asked, incredulous. “This is lunacy. We cross the bridge, and we destroy it behind us. Desperate men fight best. If you leave them an out, they’ll flee, especially your battle virgins. Give them no choice but to win or die, and they will fight almost like sa’ceurai.”
“They outnumber us, and we have four magi. Four!”
“Numbers mean nothing. Each sa’ceurai is as a hundred men. We came here for victory.” Behind them, several of Garuwashi’s men voiced muffled agreement.
“I’ll give you victory,” Logan said.
“You’ll give us nothing.”
“That’s not what I meant. Tonight under the cover of darkness, I’m sending ten thousand men west down the river. My Feyuri scouts say there’s a crossing a few miles down. Ten miles downriver is Reigukhas. It’s not a big city, but all Wanhope’s supplies flow through there, and it’s very defensible. We send our magi with my ten thousand, and they can take Reigukhas before dawn. If we can starve Wanhope’s army, it will be his men who melt away in the night.”
“They’ll see our men heading west, unless you mean to march ten thousand without any light.”
“The torches will only be visible for the first half a mile, then there’s a forest between them and the Khalidorans. It’ll look like men moving around among our campfires.”
Garuwashi was quiet for a long time. Finally, he spat. “So be it, Cenarian. But I’m sending a thousand of my sa’ceurai with your men to take the city. None shall have glory greater than the sa’ceurai.”
Thus it begins.
84
Dorian was meeting with his generals in the afternoon when he felt the first twinges of madness rising.
“Enough,” he said, interrupting General Naga’s report. “Here’s what I want. Make sure our defensive positions are impregnable. I don’t want them to even try us. Let them see our strength. In the meantime, I need better intelligence on Moburu’s numbers. We know he has two thousand krul. How many men does he have? And where the hell is—” A vision flashed before Dorian’s eyes of Khali herself, rising from the ground, perfect, whole, beautiful, embodied and smiling victoriously. The room had disappeared, and only she remained, potent, a black ocean of krul rising around her.
